Now that I am retired having been many years a magistrate with a long awareness of the declining freedoms enjoyed by the ordinary citizen and a corresponding fear of the big brother state`s ever increasing encroachment on civil liberties I hope that my personal observations within these general parameters will be of interest to those with an open mind. Having been blogging with this title for many years against the rules of the Ministry of Justice my new found freedom should allow me to be less inhibited in these observations.

Comments are usually moderated. However, I do not accept any legal responsibility for the content of any comment. If any comment seems submitted just to advertise a website it will not be published.

Thursday, 30 April 2015

The topic of fines has been here
previously, previously and previously.............It doesn`t go away because
governments of all persuasions have no provision for a final deterrent against non
payers.Of course the usual claptrap
about means courts and ability to pay are used as an argument as to why up to
£2 billion in fines, costs, surcharges etc is unpaid.The numbers and arguments here in a single court in Northern
Ireland serve as a microcosm of the situation in Great Britain.It is virtually impossible to find official current
figures for the numbers jailed for non payment of fines etc. for offences
committed in England & Wales.Page
19 of this document is the nearest I can find.The estimate is that about 100 fine defaulters are jailed annually. Perhaps that insignificant number is why that £2 billion is owed to the Treasury when one includes all manner of unpaid Fixed
Penalty Notices. When there is no active
deterrent to wilful non payers the system is a joke.Of course such opinions are anathema to those
in authority.Well known organisations
are on the phone to all and sundry when news of a Council Tax or TV License non
payer of a fine lawfully imposed refuses to pay and after perhaps a year of
hearings is sentenced to 7 days
inside.This is aggravated by the
pressure from the same organisations and others to remove the ability of
Magistrates` Courts to impose custodial sentences in any cases whatsoever. Nobody
from individual magistrates to prison governors wants these people put away but
what is an alternative?Whilst fines are
the most common sentence in our courts, mainly in the lower court system, without
enforcement they have no meaning.But as
with most matters in the justice system the public doesn`t care and politicians
don`t want to know.

All those involved or remotely concerned
with the justice system in this country will be unsurprised that law `n order
has not been a topic of those seeking to bribe us for our votes next
Thursday.When the NHS has been adopted
as an article of faith and those offering alternatives to its current position
as the national religion being described as heretics to expect intelligent
comment on both defence and justice in this election is to expect disappointment.
But
the statistics are still emanating from Petty France.I doubt there will be much comment on this
latest set of numbers concerning re-offending.For the mathematically inclined try crunching them with your coffee and
biscuits.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

To be a Justice of the Peace is or was to
be a representative of the public, of the common man, so that alleged offenders
can be judged by their peers.Indeed
when I was appointed having “common sense” was a requisite.That was dropped a decade or more ago.With the many changes to the manner of domestic
legislation since 1945 and the establishment of the European Convention of Human Rights in 1950 as a direct result of the atrocities committed during
World War 2 and the introduction of the Human Rights Act 1998 some matters
where common sense might have prevailed have been overtaken by the minutiae of
legal jargon being argued by very eloquent lawyers and interpreted by judges sometimes too fearful of straying beyond
self erected boundaries.I would posit
that this case is a perfect example of how judicial decision making does indeed
stray beyond the wit of the common man using his common sense. Of course there
are those who would argue that such decisions require more than just common
sense; that only those highly skilled in the subject are fit to adjudicate and
nobody would argue that a high intellect is not a necessity for such activity
but would eg a Nobel Prize winner in Astrophysics or a chess Grandmaster be any
less able to reach a just conclusion? Such decisions as that for this self afflicted
Libyan alcoholic are perfect ammunition to those who would offer extreme right
wing views to many of the problems currently before us.Some such problems might indeed profit from
such views but when a total political philosophy is grounded upon an imagined
contempt that the “Establishment” has for the majority of the population there
lies trouble ahead.

No doubt certain aspiring UKIP candidates
in next week`s election will quote this case.It will be hard not to agree with them.

Thursday, 16 April 2015

As I`m off to warmer climes tomorrow I
hadn`t intended posting today but having been an arch critic of interpretation
services at magistrates` courts I thought it appropriate to pass on the latest
statistics from the MOJ on the efficiency or otherwise of said services.So for those statistically minded all the
evidence is here.

All being well I hope to return here in a couple of weeks with more observations excessive amounts of Chianti and lasagne
permitting.

Wednesday, 15 April 2015

It is generally accepted that
magistrates` courts came into being in 1285, during the reign of Edward I, when
‘good and lawful men’ were commissioned to keep the King’s peace. The title
Justice of the Peace (J.P.) first appeared in 1361, in the reign of Edward III.
As the office was unpaid only those with independent wealth could be
appointed.Until the turn of this
century applicants had to declare their political affiliation before their
applications would be considered. Prior to 2003 there was a great deal of truly
local control of individual magistrates` courts.

With major changes in society since 1997;
reduction in crime, increase in out of court disposals, mass immigration,
increases in legislation and government`s increasing desire to exercise
control,units of governance increased
in size eg many smaller London boroughs were abolished and absorbed into larger
entities with populations the size of cities such as Bristol.Courts were no exception to this big is best philosophy.With the formation of Her Majesty`s Courts
and Tribunals Service in 2011 central government has overall control of the
whole courts` process.

On March 25th Isatfor the last time as a magistrate.I did not resign, I was not removed for misconduct; I have been retired
because I will be about to reach the biblical standard and compulsory
retirement age of three score years and ten.As an individual who has freely givenone day weekly for each of these seventeen years it will most certainly
leave a gap in my life and lifestyle which will not easily be replaced.But as part of a cohort of baby boomers,
currently 55% of my colleagues are over 60 years old, the lay magistracyis losing its most experienced members many
or most of whom are qualified to sit as chairmen in court. Those in their fifth decade of life make up
28% of J.P.s. The youngest group; the under forties has been fairly constant
over the last decade at under 4% of the total.An organisation which for whatever reason loses or is projected to lose
such a high percentage of its most senior members cannot be expected to have a
long shelf life.This brief summary is
not about the representative nature of the magistracy.My concern is that as appointees and the most
junior members of the judiciary we are subject to the whim of government.And that whim hints at the removal of lay
magistrates from our courts system as we know it;asystem of courts unique in the world where lay magistrates have powers
of custodial sentencing.

The last fifteen years have seen a gradual
erosion of the powers of magistrates` benches over their members and behind the
scenes court processes.Her Majesty`s
Courts and Tribunal Service has arguably created powers for itself not
envisaged by those who set these changes in motion.Whilst the number of J.P.s has fallen by
almost a third over this period of falling numbers of cases coming to
courtthe same period has seen the
number of full time District Judges sitting alonerising from below 100 to 139 assisted by 154
part time Deputy District Judges.The
numbers of District Judges (and D.D.J.s)have increased as a direct result of government policies. It is
reasonable to ask oneself why.It cannot
be purely on cost although if their having a qualified legal clerk for
assistance were abolished the cost difference would be a close run thing
allowing for J.P.s expenses.It cannot
be that increasing court time is required.The last decade has seen the number of lay magistrates reduced from
c30,000 to c 23,000. The only logical conclusion is that by having the lower
courts under the control of salaried civil servants they become more amenable
to central control.Those more expert
than I in the manipulation of statistics have suggested that converting the
Deputies to full time D.J.s would enable a government to remove the lay Justice
of the Peace from the criminal court altogether replacing him/her with a single
arbiter of law, fact finding and sentencingthus allowingfull -on control of the total courts process by
civil servants beholden to government for their stipend.It is virtually beyond argument that this is
indeed what happened after the riots of 2011.I personally experienced pressure from senior officials to send where
lawful arelated matter at that time to
crown court as District Judges were instructed to do notwithstanding whether or
not it had passed the required seriousness test.My colleagues and I at the time declined such
pressure.

There is no doubt that in their quest to
pursue the concept of restorative justice,the proliferation of out of court disposals, the pressure to reduce
custodial sentencing and the virtual balancing of costs between J.P.s and an
arguablymore efficient and cost
effective professional judiciary there are politicians all too willing to heed
the voices of pressure groups to remove the lay magistracy from the courtrooms
of England and Wales.Recent
legislative changes, many by the coalition, have seen the resignation of a
small number of J.P.s........statistics are impossible to find. Imposition of taxes unrelated to income termed
“victim surcharge” on convicted offenders in addition to costs, fines,
community requirements and custodial sentences were greeted with dismay by most
of my colleagues.Newly announced
additional such taxation known as the Criminal Court Charge will almost
certainly accelerate the philosophical distance between magistrates and
government leadinginevitably to
resignations especially from the most senior cohort of J.P.s.

I can now write in all
honesty that against my previous expectations I am happy to have reached this
milestone; the end of my judicial career. However I intend to continue with
this blog as long as I think I have something useful to say and there are some
who consider it is something useful to read.